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The Week in Washington: “Look at Us!”

Dark days, and then still darker days. In the middle of the afternoon last Friday, Republican Senator Susan Collins, in a full-on Aunt Lydia moment, spent nearly 45 minutes explaining why she was voting to give Judge Brett Kavanaugh a seat on the Supreme court. She lavishly detailed all the good things she had found out about the nominee, and how harsh and divisive she thought his critics had been. “One can only hope that the Kavanaugh nomination is where the process has finally hit rock-bottom,” she declared. And yes, senator, rock-bottom it is.

Who would disagree? Not the women screaming, “Look at us!” at Senator Joe Manchin, who called himself a good ole West Virginia boy as he declared that he too would vote to confirm, the only Democrat to do so. Not the millions who reacted with horror as the president took to the stage in Mississippi on Tuesday and openly mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who dared to tell the confirmation committee that Kavanaugh had sexually molested her when they were in high school. (Trump’s performance was repulsive, but at least it was more honest than the senators who are now saying that they believe something happened to Dr. Ford, but that even though she identified her attacker with 100 percent certainty, the little woman must be mistaken.)

Even Senator Jeff Flake, in the end, voted for Kavanaugh, despite the elevator pitch that allegedly convinced him to demand a further FBI instigation, an inquiry that was stillborn from the moment it was conceived. Neither Kavanaugh nor Ford were questioned; witnesses who came forward with tales to tell were rebuffed. According to The New York Times, when Trump himself said he was okay with a fuller inquiry, White House counsel Don McGahn warned him to pull back—even though the administration was facing a storm of condemnation for limiting the FBI background check, he told the president, a wider investigation could spell doom.

Is the darkest hour truly before dawn? If we can extract a shred of hopefulness from the depth of despair, it is that we have a chance to vanquish the GOP in the midterms—only 30 days from now!—and then open up a complete investigation into Kavanaugh’s true history. (And of course, if we not only win the House but by some miracle take the Senate as well, we can do a lot more stuff too.)

In other news—because appointing a prevaricator who may cast a vote to repeal Roe v. Wade is not enough!—earlier this week the Times published the results a massive investigation into the president’s wealth, a spiderweb of exploited loopholes, tax dodges, and shell companies that gives the lie to the creation story of how Trump’s dad gave him a teeny little $1 million seed money from which he built his sketchy empire. (According to the Times, it was more like $413 million.)